CubeX, a division of Sorento Healthcare, recently organised a conference to highlight necessity of innovations in OTC sector. This conference was titled as ‘Innovation in OTC Business: From Concepts to Action.’ In the recent years, a lot has been said about innovation, however, for a long period innovation just remained a buzz word. Things have been changing now and challenging market conditions are making companies to not just talk about but also to implement innovations in their products and brand promotions.

Every session at the conference helped the audience to know many aspects of OTC business that were perhaps not known before. There were four sessions like ‘New thinking- new realities in the OTC industry,’ ‘Creating value added OTC business through innovation’, ‘Technology as a catalyst for innovation’ and ‘Stimulating innovation.’

Nicholas Hall, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Nicholas Hall and Company and Susan Joshi, Managing Partner, Sorento Healthcare Communications provided an overview of market trends and developments in the global and Indian OTC industry. Hall’s views on growth drivers for OTC business were appreciated by the attendees. Joshi said that innovation and collaboration would decide the success of the OTC business. Collaboration allows to take advantage of the larger consumer healthcare opportunity.

Ameesh Masurekar, Founder Director, AIOCD Pharmasofttech, AWACS stressed that it was important to create competition among distributors at far higher trade margins. He largely spoke about unique business model in OTC business.